Tracking the big business of donated blood in Orlando

Special report

It starts with Rebecca Zamrycki, 27, who lives in Orlando and has given a pint every eight weeks for a decade.

It ends with people such as Ed Havill, the 67-year-old Lake County property appraiser who needs blood transfusions to battle his leukemia.

In the middle is Florida's Blood Centers of Orlando, which draws the blood, tests it and sells it for an average of $300 a pint to hospitals and health-care facilities in 21 counties.

For its services, FBC expects to gross $100 million this year, making the nonprofit the fourth-largest independent blood bank in the nation.

Based in a four-story building once owned by the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain, the 66-year-old center employs nearly 1,000. That includes an administrative staff with nine managers paid more than $100,000 and a CEO -- Anne Chinoda -- whose compensation package tops $500,000 a year.

The 40-member board that oversees FBC is drawn from the region's top employers and community leaders, some of whom also do business with the agency. They have been involved in deals worth more than $2 million annually in recent years.

Such arrangements are common in blood banking, though the practice draws criticism from some nonprofit experts because of the potential for conflicts of interest.

FBC officials say they follow strict ethical standards that ensure those arrangements are aboveboard and financially beneficial to the agency.

Chinoda deferred comments to FBC board chairman Leighton Yates, who said, "We have to make sure it is all done in the open. . . . We feel what we have done is fair to all at the blood bank."

FBC's existence depends on the largesse of people such as Zamrycki. Reputable blood banks don't pay for blood out of a belief that those who sell it are much more likely to have communicable diseases and that the money would give donors a financial incentive to lie about their medical history.

Last year, she and thousands of other donors gave more than 320,000 pints of blood to FBC, which has offices throughout Central Florida and parts of South Florida.

"I may sound a little saccharine when I say this, but donating blood really is giving the gift of life. One donation can save three lives. Knowing this, how could I choose not to donate?" Zamrycki said by e-mail.

FBC technicians put donated blood through an expensive series of tests for diseases such as HIV, West Nile virus, hepatitis and syphilis. It is then split into red cells, platelets and plasma and sold, making FBC the critical link between blood donors and transfusion recipients such as Havill.

He owes his life to his numerous transfusions, including three in one recent 24-hour period, said his wife, Donna. "Ed can tell when his levels are getting low, extreme fatigue and the feeling of being out of breath," she said.

Directors' connections

As a nonprofit, the blood bank does not have to release details of its finances. Instead, FBC files annual disclosure forms called 990s with the IRS. Information in those forms is sometimes inconsistent -- and at least a year old before it becomes public. But it's clear from the 990s that FBC does business with companies that employ its directors:

*Holland & Knight, the law firm that employs chairman Yates, has been paid more than $1 million for legal services since 2003, the first year the IRS pushed for such payments to be reported.

*Darden Restaurants, represented on the board by its senior vice president, Bradford Richmond, has sold almost $1.6 million worth of restaurant coupons to FBC in each of the past three years. The $10 gift cards cost FBC $5.50 each and are given to donors as a token of appreciation.

*Orlando-based Eidson Insurance agency has sold nearly $2 million worth of policies to FBC from 2004-06.

*The Orlando Sentinel, WFTV-Channel 9 and Sprint/Embarq, who at the time had executives on the board, also have received business.

Between 2004-06, WFTV was paid more than $367,000 for promotional work; Sprint/Embarq nearly $350,000 for phone services; and the Sentinel more than $35,000, in part for a marketing study. The Sentinel and WFTV no longer have employees on the board.

FBC officials say they don't allow board members to vote on transactions with their companies. And some of the contracts are bid, though Yates wouldn't identify them.

Yates also said that FBC board members' companies offer services at competitive or below-market rates. He would not provide an example.

"It seems unreasonable to exclude them from doing business with us," said Yates, whose firm advises FBC on contract and labor issues.

Holland & Knight, he said, handles only work for which it is qualified. FBC employs different firms for other legal issues, such as defending personal-injury allegations.

Eidson has done the most business with FBC recently, selling nearly $2 million worth of policies to the center from 2004-06, IRS records show.